Skaneateles man sentenced to 5 years in prison for growing 600 marijuana plants

Syracuse, N.Y. -- A Skaneateles man was sentenced to five years in prison Tuesday for growing more than 600 marijuana plants in Moravia and Skaneateles.

U.S. District Judge Norman Mordue imposed the sentence on Michael Calogero, 31, who pleaded guilty last year to conspiring with Joshua J. Cole and others to manufacture the marijuana plants.

Calogero admitted that from November 2009 until April 15, 2010, he and Cole grew the plants at Calogero’s home and barn, at 4000 State Street Road in Skaneateles, and at 435 Boscobell Lane in Moravia, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Syracuse.

Cole has also pleaded guilty and is scheduled to be sentenced next week.

As part of his plea agreement, Calogero will forfeit the barn and home in Skaneateles. The home is assessed at $243,000, according to property records.

Calogero also agreed to forfeit $360,000 in lieu of the Moravia property, plus $23,000 in cash that investigators seized at his home.

At the Moravia home, which is owned by Calogero’s father, Anthony Calogero, the agents found more than 200 marijuana plants growing in the basement, along with equipment for their cultivation, according to an affidavit from DEA Special Agent Robert Alcaro.

Calogero told the agents he’d been growing the plants in the basement and above the garage at the Moravia property, the affidavit said. He said he’d been growing marijuana there for the year that he’d rented the home from his father, the affidavit said.

The agents seized handwritten directions posted on a wall in the basement on how to care for the plants, Alcaro wrote. They executed a search warrant at Cole’s property at 134-136 Wall Street in Auburn and found another 6 to 8 pounds of harvested marijuana that was packaged for sale, Alcaro wrote.

At the Skaneateles property, also owned by Anthony Calogero, the agents found 415 marijuana plants in the barn and a “large, well-constructed marijuana cultivation facility” on the second floor, the affidavit said. The facility had compressed carbon dioxide canisters that were used to enhance the marijuana production, Alcaro wrote.

The DEA agents conducted a surveillance of Cole before his arrest, and watched him driving to the Skaneateles barn almost daily from November 2009 until April 2010, the affidavit said.